I saw the first five games and understood rench was going to win. He is a lot better at one minute games. Pruess often got a better position and lost because of time trouble

Daniel Rensch

WHO WON!???

someone please tell me!

I hadn't read these posts when I stopped in about 50 games into the match...now I understand why someone was something-point-five points ahead.

Someone at Chess.com had a sense of humor:)

At $180+/hr this is nothing to sneeze at for most people, and it doesn't matter, whether it's a regular ("proper"?) game, or a bunch of blitz games, or a gazillion of "bullets"...

I will bet Chuck Norris could go 0.5 ahead in a match, but he probably would not.

The match has started!

Why not play one proper game or two decent ones?

It's half an hour before the match, and I shall now make my prediction:

David shall eke out Danny by a 4 game margin after 3 grueling hours of play that will go all the way down to the wire, producing exactly 97 games.

@FMKaydenTroff

I'm not entirely sure that it's not an impossibility... unless the programmers have detected some bad code and put it right or it is indeed intentional. I know in some of the matches I've watched, some players have taken a 0.5 point lead in a match; maybe if there's a draw due to insufficient material that would otherwise be a loss on time?...

@Shazomei

Interesting comment, but one thing I would like to point out is that your example of someone getting a +1.5 lead is impossible as they are playing each other.  The only way to get 1.5 is to draw a game, but if one gets a draw the other one does also so +.5 can't quite happen.  But your other logic I would guess depends on what they want, like if they want the money, or if they just want to make it a good show, or if they want to stick to Chess Respect and resign when they are losing.

:D this is goingto be good.

I'm curious on match strategy too. For example, if one player gets (for example) a 5 win lead with only 20 minutes to go, will they make the other player on course for a redeeming victory play the game out to checkmate to draw out time?

More curiously, does it benefit the player with a lead at any point to make the other play the game out to checkmate? (with it being 1_1 time controls, there is potential to win every game with a significant material advantage and to not lose on time - but that doesn't stop the players of finding delays within the overall match time)

I would probably hazard a guess that this strategy only becomes psychologically useful if one of the players can gain a 1.5+ point lead. Once you get that kind of a lead, you want to be thinking about winning the match and drawing it out, because even with a loss, you remain a clear 0.5+ points ahead...

Anyone want to proffer any other potential match strategies or psychological strategies? :)

   90 minutes away folks!  Get ready for some chaos. I have Chessbase 11 ready to start some organization and my post-event wrap-up blog and the entire match will be uploaded to the Database of Games section here on Chess.com.

   -Mark

@  Scarlet_chessmaster yes

is it today?wednesday 11th 2012?

Hahaha, yeah I'm here in America with the guys and will be around when they play later this morning.

Can I call winner!?

I think the big G will win this one. He's had an excellent performance at the North California International, and despite them not getting paired at the tournament so David could claim his first psychological victory like he claimed he would in Pardon Our Blunders; I have to admit, I've not seen news about David playing anywhere recently (outside of Fremont); and he's not been submitting content for video lectures for some time. For whatever reason, I don't think he's been keeping up with his theory and study as much as Danny in recent weeks, and I think he's less prepared for it. I wouldn't be surprised if Danny has been doing some King's Gambit preparation as well. :P

(On a side note: does anyone know if 6/9 would've been good enough for a GM norm for Danny, if the tournament didn't have the problem they had with the foreign players rule?)

This'll be close.